2 Leadership Interventions

Familiarity
with group dynamics is not sufficient without the exercise of skills
in group leadership. Knowing what to do, when and how, are of cardinal
importance in establishing and maintaining a positive group climate.

2.1. Encouraging interaction

'People ask questions and this stimulates the group. I feel we don't
mind if a friend asks a question, but if a lecturer asks you, you
dry up. A member of staff will always have the answer at this fingertips.
I've always resented making an idiot of myself.' Students who are
remarkably talkative outside classes are often reluctant to contribute
to group discussion when a tutor is present, and a tutor leaving
the room is likely to stimulate a resurgence in conversation among
the group, even on academic topics. What can you as a tutor do while
present which might lead to a similar kind of open discussion among
students without abdicating your leadership role? The skills or
behaviours necessary for this purpose are not difficult to acquire
(though we may not always find it easy to produce them when most
wanted). They are nonetheless worth having in your repertoire even
if you do need to perform them self-consciously in the first instance.

Glancing Round the Group

It is generally considered rude not to look at somebody when they
are talking to you. Yet to do so as a group leader will quickly
create the sort of communication pattern illustrated in Fig 3(a).
It is not easy to pick up the habit of scanning the group both when
we are talking and when students are contributing. Though we will
want to catch the eye of a student as he talks from time to time
we can, by looking around, encourage him to follow suit and so cause
the whole group to give him more attention, thus discouraging the
common tendency for discussion to drift into a series of one-to-one
duologues.

Looking for Signals

If, when one student is talking, you glance round the group, you
may well find yourself picking up cues from others who are puzzled,
or anxious to check something. As the particular contribution ends,
you will thus be in a better position to draw in some of the less
vocal students.

Often the cues are no more than an indrawn breath, a snort of frustration,
a shifting of position, or a puzzled frown. To have noted them and
to be seen to have done so, usually helps in deciding what to do
or what not to do at the next stage in the proceedings. You will
also be better apprised of the group climate. In fact you may even
be giving the group a better sense of its own identity through the
very act of glancing round the group.

Using Non-Verbal Communication

Sometimes when it may be difficult to interrupt a discussion without
sounding critical or punitive, a non-verbal intervention can work
wonders. On some occasions, this might consist of catching a student's
eye and giving him an encouraging smile or inviting him to speak
by raising your eyebrows. On others, the connection may be through
gestures - an extended palm to suggest 'Would you like to come in
now?': - or using two hands to indicate 'What does everyone else
think?'. These non-verbal signals are the natural partners to verbal
invitations but are generally less intrusive and just as productive.
Two non-verbal gestures which are not often used but seem to work
effectively are the 'traffic cop' signals designed to bring students
into a discussion and to block them out. (See Fig 3) Figure 3

Bringing in and Shutting Out

These gestures highlight two complementary purposes. In order to
encourage students to talk, you may need to invite individual members
of the group into the discussion, either verbally or non-verbally.
You may also pick up significant non-verbal signals for example
when a student silently smiles or frowns. On such occasions you
might say: 'What are you thinking, Jo?' or 'You smiled, Jo'. On
the other hand you may want to restrain someone who constantly talks
or interrupts before frustration grows and disturbs the equilibrium
of the group. Provided we can do it supportively and straightforwardly:
'Could you just hold it there Brian - it would be interesting to
know how the others respond to that.' or 'Let's put that on ice
for the moment, Gill, while we hear what everyone else has to say,'
then the student should not feel unduly put out.

Reflecting and deflecting questions

When students ask questions like ' Can you tell us what you know
about....?' or 'What should the answer be?' you may be tempted to
fall in with their wish to set you up as an expert. A simple way
out of this trap is to turn the question back with: 'Well, what
do you think?' on the grounds that the student probably has an inkling
of the answer anyway or would not have asked the question and it
is usually better to get students to formulate their own ideas in
the first instance. But there are occasions when you may be the
only person present who could possibly know the answer to a particular
question, or where a refusal to answer could slow down proceedings.
A very useful and more comfortable variant of 'turning questions
back' is to redirect or deflect them. For instance the question
from a student: 'I don't understand what the author is trying to
say. What does it all mean?' could be met with 'Well, what does
anybody else think?' or 'Does everyone else have the same problem?'
or 'Do you have any ideas about what it means?'

Supporting and Valuing

It is easy to overlook an important ingredient of effective group
discussion: the creation of a feeling of security and belonging;
an atmosphere of trust and openness where people are valued for
what they are so that they have no need to fear making a fool of
themselves. This is easily said, but not so easily done in the thick
of a hectic term's work where teaching and assessing become an almost
undifferentiated continuum. The temptation to correct discussion
contributions in the same way as one might write comments to an
essay is great. Perry (1970) describes how tutors typically view
the discussion as 'an opportunity to develop initiative and scope
in their own thinking', at least initially.

'No sooner do the students get started, however, and some error or inexactness
is voiced, than the older form of responsibilities imposes on the
tutor the imperative of 'correcting'. In the time where this tendency
gets in motion, three to five corrections of this kind appear sufficient
to defeat the students' initiative for search and flow of their
exploration. The initiative for conversation then falls back on
the instructor who then finds himself in a monologue or lecture,
with the sensation of being somehow trapped, compelled, by powerful
forces, in himself and the students, to do what he had never intended
to do.'

This is not to say that the correction of 'errors' is an unacceptable
sin. The question is not one of 'whether' but rather of 'when' and
'how'. To reject or correct the first contribution a student makes
would generally be counterproductive. Apart from inhibiting free
expression, as in the above quotation, it is likely to lock students
into a belief that there are right and wrong answers to every question
and that you are the arbiter of correctness. So, when you feel that
a student is "off the beam" try using one of the following: 'Is
that really so?' 'Could you think about that again?' 'Let's just
look at that more carefully.' 'How does that tally with what you
said before?' 'Would anyone else like to comment on what George
just said?' 'Uh-huh!' Students may thus pick up that they have said
something irrelevant or inconsistent but be encouraged to discover
their own way out.

Checking and Building

Students (not to speak of tutors) are not always as lucid as they
would wish to be when formulating ideas for the first time. Some
of the most imaginative contributors to a discussion may find it
difficult to express their half-formed ideas clearly at first. Lest
the whole group continue in a state of confusion the tutor can quickly
check for understanding by simply asking: 'Let me check that I understand
you - are you saying ...?' and the student is often grateful for
the clarification. What the student does say may well relate to
a line of argument pursued earlier in discussion or contradict something
he has said earlier. In each case, the tutor can help to make links
with comments such as: 'That ties in with what you were saying before
- it sounds as though you have a coherent view of it.' 'Does that
contradict what you said a few minutes ago?' or 'So it would be
fair to say that whilst you disagree with the functionalist view,
you have not yet...' Ideally, it would be preferable if the students
were left to make the interpretation for themselves: 'How does that
connect with what you said before?' 'Is Julie being consistent there?'
Sometimes you may choose to go further by putting several emerging
themes together and formulating a new coherent picture of the topic
under discussion. But how much better it would be to allow the students
to do so for themselves!

Re-directing

Sometimes you may wish, either because of you have a schedule to
keep to, or the discussion is getting bogged down, to change direction.
You may not find it easy to decide whether students would be glad
of a change or would prefer to go their own way. Yet sometimes it
is necessary to take command and say: 'Hang on to that but let's
switch our attention to another aspect...' or 'I think we've reached
the point where we could turn our attention to ...' More often than
not, it is difficult to be sure of the climate and also of one's
own motives. A safer way of approaching the problem may once again
be to test the group: 'Are you ready now to...?' 'Do you think we've
worked on that one for long enough now?' It may be even more valuable
to check the process as well as content: 'Could we stop at this
point and check whether we're going about this the right way?' This
intervention is almost identical with the basketball term 'time
out' in which teams take a break from the game to review progress
and discuss tactics. There is nothing unusual about all these leadership
interventions. They are practised quite frequently in everyday life
but are somehow forgotten in the culture of a discussion group.
We must however use them with discretion, not in pursuit of our
own needs, but in response to what our growing awareness of the
group process tells us.